Until You Leave
by Yochan
Summary: Six years ago, Sanji is a young cook on the pirate restaurant Baratie. *Yaoi.* Mild shota. Zeff/Sanji.


When the kid finally came to a stop, the kitchen was eerily silent. It was as if even the hot flames of the stove stopped cracking for a tense, silent moment. No sound of knives on thick wood, no sound of dishing clanking and sloshing in the huge sink. No sound at all, but the rough, angry heaving of Zeff's breathing.

"Hidoi…Zeff-san…"

Carne's voice broke the silence, as the man swiped his dishtowel across his forehead and eyed the crumpled form of their youngest sometimes-cook and mostly dishwasher. It was hard to believe that Sanji was technically the second founding member of the floating restaurant Baratie. The boy was nothing but mouth, and constantly in trouble for one thing or another. But he worked hard. 

This was too much.

"Oi, Zeff. Did you hear that? Look, the boy's blee--"

"Shut up!"

Redfoot Zeff turned sharply, silencing both Patti and Carne with a dark look. He approached the young blond slowly, peg leg creaking across the floor. The sounds of the kitchen started back up in bits and pieces, with an almost comic style, the way the piano always starts playing in a saloon just after the fight. Everything surrounding Zeff was too big, almost comical. His legend, his leg, his moustache, his hat. Even Zeff himself, with his barrel chest and imposing height. 

"You little idiot eggplant."

The kid was pale, looked small, laying there against the flour sacks in the corner of the room. Zeff could feel the eyes of the other cooks and waiters behind him. No one would speak up now.

But maybe he had kicked the boy too hard this time.

A few quick, light nudges with his foot, and Sanji didn't stir at all. Zeff groaned, and turned a little, to the audience of cooks trying to look like they weren't paying attention.

"Patti. Take him to his bu…" Zeff trailed off, suddenly, and looked back down at the pale boy, and the slow trickle of blood running out of his hair. Blood from where he'd hit the wall. His eyes had been wide for just a moment before he'd crumpled.

"Take him to my room," he finally finished, looking around quickly, daring anyone to protest, to so much as squeak thoughtfully. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zeff's room smelled like wood shavings. But not very strongly, because his room was near the top of the ship, and the breeze always came in his open windows, and made the room smell more like the sea than anything else. Sanji's corner of the bunkrooms down below usually smelled like onions. Because onions smelled better than Carne. Sanji had learned to keep a sack of onions under his hammock. That, or if he was lucky enough to palm some before Zeff saw, a fresh sprig of rosemary. It was best to grab those right after the trade ships came by, when the herbs still smelled a little bit like dirt and land.

Sanji couldn't remember what land felt like beneath his feet. 

And now he had no idea why the hell he was in Zeff's bed. It was dark in the room, though. Dark enough that he decided to pretend this was some sort of crazy-ass dream. He stretched a little, enjoying the softness of the mattress below. The shitty old man had good taste. The breeze was warm, so he kicked the covers away, sprawling out his boxers and rolling onto his stomach.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh fuck. The kid was awake.

Zeff froze, certain that at any moment he was going to burst. His breath was held, his cock was choked, and his blood was rushing in his ears. Thirty years on the sea, earning the title Redfoot for the blood he'd spilled with his intense kicking skills, and here he was, terrified a thirteen-year-old was going to roll over and spot him jerking off.

The kid certainly took his fucking time before going back to sleep, and the whole time, Zeff was trying to hold as still as possible, caught mid-jerk, sitting across the room with his breeches open and his thumb and forefinger wringing at his cock. He growled back a moan as the boy rolled over and grew still again.

Slowly, carefully, he took a long breath, and started to stroke himself more slowly, savoring it.

Sanji's boxers were too small. He'd have to talk to someone about that. Hell if he knew what sizes to buy a kid. A kid growing like an overfed guppy at that. The way Sanji was laying, he could see the way the material dimpled between his ass cheeks, showing off the tight curve between those muscles.

His breathing became soft grunting.

"Yeah…mnnn…that's right…put it in your mouth…"

His fingers moved faster, the head of his cock purpling as the flesh in his fingers throbbed, hardened so much he had to shift his weight, sure his balls were going to explode.

"Ah!"

He came a moment later, catching the hot spunk up in a dish towel.

"Damn you, Sanji," he muttered, eyes on that sleeping form. With the heady rush of the orgasm past him, the little eggplant was just the little eggplant again. Worth more than his hands had to offer. 

It had been a bad idea to bring him here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zeff couldn't sleep.

It had to be near dawn, he judged by the look of the sky, the stars bobbing and swaying out the window with the gentle motion of the Baratie. 

Zeff couldn't sleep because he was laying completely still on the smallest portion of his bed he could possibly fit on without touching the sprawled-out blond taking up three times more space than he needed on the mattress. 

A few minutes ago, the kid had made a sound in his sleep. He'd made a quiet, crying little sound like the sound a dying bird made.

Sanji didn't make sounds like that. Sanji growled. Sanji hissed. Sanji yelled and swore and coughed on cigarettes and scowled and frowned and definitely never made sounds like that. 

Sure, Sanji cried sometimes, but even when he cried he'd manage to break something or hit someone or give a fierce, angry look to anyone stupid enough to try to comfort him.

Sanji made another sound, and Zeff rolled over, wincing at the way the mattress creaked and dimpled, sending the kid sliding in his direction just enough that the kid's arm was suddenly resting against his. His breath sucked in sharply, and he fought the urge to wrench his hand away. The last thing he needed was this stupid eggplant thinking he was going to pet him or make him feel better. 

Sanji needed to act more like a man.

Sanji needed to grow up.

Sanji was…

Sanji was slowly moving closer.

"Oi…" Zeff's voice was a horrified whisper.

Sanji put his arm completely around Zeff's arm, and slowly rubbed his face in the tuft's of blond hair that stood on out the man's thick forearm.

"Oi!"

Sanji made another sound, and continued wriggling closer, sliding his body completely against Zeff's in an awkward, stretched out and contorted position.

It was like the fucking kid had to make sure every inch of his body was touching Zeff's.

And Zeff couldn't breathe.

He couldn't move either, and it took him nearly ten minutes to realize Sanji had stopped moving, and was still sound asleep, and no longer making any sounds.

Zeff noticed, detachedly, that he'd managed to start breathing again, because each breath stirred the hair on the top of Sanji's head. The hair was sticking up around the lame bandaging job someone had done earlier on the cut on the boy's head. It looked like a headband. It reminded him of the way Sanji had once dressed himself up in a uniform of cheesecloth and twine and proclaimed himself to be Mr. Super Chef.

Oh fuck.

He could feel something against his thigh. Flesh that was too soft to be normal skin or muscle. Flesh that wasn't angular and bony like the rest of the gangly kid.

His heart beat so hard that he wasn't sure how it wasn't waking Sanji up. This was all wrong. He wanted to cup that soft flesh, wanted to push Sanji's legs open and explore every crevice and wrinkle and line of his body. He wanted to taste Sanji. He wanted to suck on that little cock until he knew every single sound the boy was capable of making. 

And he wanted to break something for wanting it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dawn broke through the window, lighting Sanji's eyelids all fiery, until he opened them, blinking and squinting. He never slept until dawn, what the hell was wrong with him. He--

He was clinging to something furry and huge. And when he looked up, all he could see was long, blond braided moustache.

He must be dead, cause he'd swear he was cuddled up on Zeff. And he hated Zeff. And Zeff hated him. And he would never, ever EVER cuddle up on that stinky, shitty, mean old man. He'd never cuddle up on anyone, because he was tougher than that. He was a man. He didn't need cuddling.

But it sure as hell seemed like he was cuddling.

And it also seemed like Zeff was snoring.

Great. If he moved, Zeff might wake up and kill him. Maybe a quick death-by-peg-leg would be better than owning up to the fact that he was holding Zeff's arm like a little girl clinging to a mop-doll. Why was he in Zeff's bed anyway? And why did his head hurt so bad?

It was time to be very, very careful.

He started to inch away when Zeff moved slightly, and to his horror, shifted a huge, heavy arm over his side.

Holy. Shit.

He was trapped under Zeff's arm now. And Zeff was poking him too.

Wait.

Sanji's face colored, cheeks burning with a strange, tingling realization. If he was holding one arm, and the other arm was around him, the poking hardness up against his hip couldn't be one arm, or the other arm, so it had to be--

Holy shit. Fucking shit.

"Kuso-jiji!" His voice was a low, barely there, adolescent growl, not really enough to be sure it would wake Zeff up.

Zeff didn't really have to wake up for sure. 

It didn't feel that bad, the poking. And he knew what Patti and Carne were always sneaking around doing. Being men. Acting like men. And sure he was small and everything but he was definitely already a man. He could take care of himself, he smoked cigarettes, and he could cook better than all the older apprentices.

And he was even a little bit curious.

Sometimes he could hear Patti and Carne, and some of the other cooks too. They made noises like noises people didn't normally make. Grunty sort of sounds that made his dick hard when he listened.

Feeling Zeff poking him made him start to get hard too. And that made it feel weird to breathe. If Zeff woke up and caught him cuddling AND hard he was really going to kill him.

Why was Zeff hard anyway? Maybe it was just that morning thing he got sometimes. Zeff was probably having huge dreams about beautiful one-legged women with big tits.

Sanji's brow knit, and that made his head hurt worse.

It wasn't like shitty smelly old Zeff would want to touch him, anyway. Zeff was always treating him like a kid, telling him what to do, knocking every damn recipe he tried. He was never good enough for him. It wasn't like Zeff would want to do the things with him that the other cooks did.

But even as he thought it, his stomach twisted like he ate something bad. His bare foot rested up against the worn, smooth wood of Zeff's peg leg. The leg Zeff had hacked away with his own knife. The leg Zeff had taken to keep himself alive. To keep Sanji alive. Just because Sanji had been stupid enough to fall off the ship, stupid enough to end up marooned on a shitty little rock in the middle of the shitty ocean with that shitty old pirate. 

His eyes were burning, and his head hurt worse, and out of nowhere, thick, hot tears started to streak down his cheeks. He held absolutely still, trying to will them away. A held breath coughed out with a quiet hiccup, and he squeaked with anger, hating Zeff, hating the ship and the tears and fish and cooking and all the stupid cuts on his thumb and hating himself for not just drowning when he should have, because then Zeff would still have a leg and he'd still be the best and scariest pirate in the ocean. Maybe some day he'd get shitty stupid Zeff to kick him so hard he would just not wake up, and then Zeff wouldn't have to bother with him anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zeff woke up to something poking him, and the aggravating realization that the light in his eyes was dawn, and that for the first time in three years, he was late down to the kitchens. He was going to have to kick some idiots around to make sure no one even thought about commenting on that.

What.

Something was poking him?

Motherfucking goddess of the East Blue.

Why the fuck was Sanji in his bed, and cuddling him?

The second thing he thought made his blood run cold. What if he'd hurt him? Had he touched the boy? Oh shit oh SHIT what was Sanji doing in his bed.

Sanji was hard. Was Sanji even old enough to get hard? Fuck.

It was plain as anything, that handful of flesh poking him like a finger. All the soft mushy bits were rock hard now. He could practically feel the blood trying to flow, all choked up and hot in the smooth shaft.

Zeff held very still.

Maybe the kid had morning wood. That was perfectly natural. He'd just wait for it to settle, and slip out of bed before Sanji woke up.

Sanji didn't actually seem to be asleep though. The kid was tense. Tense like a corpse. He wasn't??

No, he was breathing. Every once in a while anyway. That didn't seem normal. And on top of that, Sanji wasn't really poking him anymore now.

Instead he was shaking lightly against him.

Zeff's tongue squirmed around in his mouth while he thought about it, and he nearly bit it when the boy squeaked out of nowhere.

"Eggplant?"

The kid sniffed. "Yeah?"

"You awake?"

"Yeah."

"Are you crying?"

"No."

That cleared up, the room got really, really silent for a while.

Zeff's erection slowly retreated, shrinking away from the flesh of the boy still uncomfortably flush against his body in the too-small bed.

"Hey, old man?"

"Yes?"

"Do you wish you had your leg still?"

"Sometimes."

Sanji got quiet again for a while, and Zeff peeked at the top of his head, where his blond hair made a feathery crown in the orange morning sunlight. 

"Do you sometimes wish you didn't have to take care of me?"

Zeff was just a beat to slow to answer that. Because…because sometimes he wished Sanji had a nice couple of parents off on some island. He wished he didn't jerk off at night wanting to feel how tight Sanji was inside. He wished he could tell Sanji that at thirteen he was the best cook on this ocean. He wished Sanji had a way to go find All Blue, find his crazy, bug-eyed, grinning dream.

He started to try to answer, and the stupid kid interrupted him.

"It'd be better if I drowned."

Sanji's words made his jaw slam shut, made his teeth grind a nasty, gritting sound in his mouth. He found himself face to face the boy, scowling fiercely into big, blue, surprised, scared eyes.

He'd rolled right onto Sanji, put one big, soft, huge hand around the boy's throat to get his attention.

"You stupid fucking eggplant! If you say that again I'll kick you--I'll--I'll--"

Little by little, those wide eyes changed, shifted, bore into his own, making him stutter and glare and then just stare.

Sanji swallowed once, carefully, and nodded, just a little.

"Okay."

The bed creaked and groaned under them, as Zeff let go of Sanji's skinny neck and shifted back onto his side. Sanji was still pale, looked awful there, gasping and glaring and rubbing the bruises forming at the thin skin of his throat.

Zeff liked Sanji best like that, glaring. He liked Sanji when he knew the kid wouldn't stand for anything. Sanji would be a tough man.

As long as he got stupid fool ideas like that out of his head. Stupid, stupid little eggplant.

"Zeff?"

He stared, realizing it was Sanji who said his name. Sanji never said his name.

"Yes?" He glared, big furry eyebrows trying to look as tough as possible. He made a quick mental note to get Sanji out of his bed as soon as he could. He could go take his big bleeding eggplant head down to the bunkroom where he belonged. 

Sanji was frowning, looking away, rubbing his neck weird, and acting shifty. He looked about to dart away like a fish dodging a net.

"Yes?" He repeated himself more irritably, and was so focused on putting as much irritation in his voice as possible that he had no time to dodge a faceful of Sanji.

And that first gasp of surprise gave Sanji just enough opportunity to get his warm, wriggling little tongue between his lips.

Sanji tasted…

Sanji tasted like nothing else. There was nothing he could compare to the warm, sweet saliva pushing so rudely into his mouth, nothing he could compare to the worm-like, fumbling exploration of thin lips and hot tongue. It was all wrong.

"Sanji!" 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zeff's voice rumbled. He could feel it in his body like the way thunder rattled everything, even all the way in the lowest decks. His heart was beating so fast he thought he was going to pass out right there. He pulled away just enough to try to meet Zeff's eye, but in that moment the horizon tilted, and the heavy weight of the other man was back all over him. Zeff's dick was hard again, he could feel it, and it felt huge, like another arm pushing into his thigh. And that made his heart beat even faster, so fast that he made a sound, a scared sort of sound. He wasn't scared though, he wasn't. 

Zeff was kissing all over his neck, and his moustache tickled like a brush, poking him in a million places. The kisses forced his head to one side, so that he was stuck looking at the map tacked up on one wall. And the sun was shining so bright on the map that it looked like the paper ocean was on fire.

He hiccupped.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zeff's world was moving too fast. The boy was thin and bony under him, skinny and squirming and maybe even struggling. And he couldn't stop tasting him. He couldn't stop devouring the smooth, bruised flesh of Sanji's throat. This is how you taste where I hurt you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ze…Zeff…Zeff!"

He started to push, started to panic. Zeff was too big and heavy on top of him, too much. He wasn't excited anymore, he didn't want to try this. Zeff was making him feel weird. 

He was nearly shouting now, beating his small fists at Zeff's shoulders, choking, sobbing, repeating the man's name over and over and over and he then he really was shouting. Or trying to. The sound felt too little in his throat, and he curled into a ball, back up against the warm headboard.

He curled up because Zeff had let him go. Zeff wasn't touching him anymore, or kissing him.

Zeff was staring at him. And the shitty old man was crying. Not girl-crying. But he was. Sanji knew he was. His eyes were bright, standing out too much in his face.

Sanji closed his eyes.

"My head is hurting, kuso-jiji. You didn't have to kick me that hard."

"Maybe if you'd keep your eggplant head quiet and learn how to make things that didn't taste like week-old rotting elephant tuna, I wouldn't have to kick your foul mouth shut. Ever think about that?"

"It still hurts. Asshole."

"Watch your mouth."

Sanji sniffled and busied himself rubbing at both eyes with his hands, smearing snot and tears all over and gluing his messy blond bangs all over his face. He jumped a little when something weighed down on his shoulder. But it was just Zeff. Zeff was steadying him gently, as his surprisingly careful fingers peeled the bandage out of his hair to check the cut there.

"Stay in here for the morning." Zeff's voice was scruffy like the rough scratch of his chin. 

  
Sanji nodded into the pillow.

"If you can get up, practice copying recipes. If you blot, start over."

The bed shifted as Zeff got up. The room made morning sounds as he got dressed, found his hat, combed his moustache and braided it. 

"I want bouillabaisse, fried potato bread, mango chutney, squid fried rice, and chocolate mousse ready by three o'clock."

Sanji nodded and kept his eyes closed, smelling the pillow. He was already formulating cooking times in his head, fingers working silently in figures, ghosted movements of massaging the bread.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zeff watched the kid for a moment longer, satisfied to see a light frown of concentration on his brow. He straightened his hat and slipped out the door without another word. He wouldn't let Sanji drown.


End file.
